


Delta Remembers

by InsaneJul



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Altered Mental States, Church is the alpha hahaha, Delta is kinda in love with Carolina, F/M, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Memory Related, Unrequited Love, memory is the key
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-07
Updated: 2016-10-07
Packaged: 2018-08-20 02:54:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8233615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsaneJul/pseuds/InsaneJul
Summary: He didn't want them to, but York's feelings for Carolina affected Delta too.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I have this headcanon that Delta is kinda in love with Carolina because of being in York's head so long, and I wrote this about it. Sorry, it's painful like everything else I write.

"Can you tell us more about this Alpha thing?"

Church doesn't know why he's so interested all of a sudden, but he really is interested in these AI experiments. Maybe it's like watching a car crash, he thinks. It's horrifying and he needs more.

Delta is more than happy to provide. It's very satisfying to be able to educate someone on a topic you are extremely interested in. He sorts through his memories, the AI experiments, intends to share the most appropriate examples. The Dakota twins are an obvious choice, given that Church and Caboose have just met South. Delta is not sorry at all she has died, and he knows that he is not designed to really feel sorry, but it is possible. It would have been possible, no, it would have been guaranteed he'd be sorry, if he were still with York. He must admit being alive is better than being dead, but he made a decision, and he made that decision for a reason. Sometimes you do not want to leave your family behind, no matter the cost. He should have been sorry, despite all she did. _After all, that is only what makes us human_ , he thinks, wryly. But he hated her, and he hated being with her, for what she did; he was already angry for not being destroyed, as protocol dictated, with his partner. Which is why, as he explains the experiment of the Dakota twins, he sounds bitter when he speaks of her specifically, and avoids saying much about her brother. He cannot, because of how much York cared about his friend, and how well North cared for Delta's brother. It is because of York he feels this way at all, and it is equal parts comforting that his friend has stayed with him in this way, and infuriating that he cannot be fully himself anymore, that there will always be a piece of him missing. He assumes the others do not feel this way; he has no reason to think otherwise, they were fully integrated into the Meta, but he feels he will never be that way. Perhaps it is because he and York were the first, and they spent so much time together. He does not know. But he finishes his story and continues speaking of the AI experiments, and the first to come to mind is Carolina.

His voice does not pause or hitch as he begins to tell of Carolina's two AIs, or the damage they did to her. He is grateful, because he was afraid it might. The effect she had on York was stifling, and the way he felt when she suffered affected him too, sometimes sending rolling blackouts through his half-formed mind. He was not equipped to comprehend or withstand such strong emotions, and York would always apologize, but never change. Delta learned quickly that he could not change, that human emotions, most especially love, were simply uncontrollable. He had almost adjusted to dealing with York's emotions when Carolina was implanted with Eta and Iota, and then he was thrown completely off balance as Carolina suffered for weeks: unable to focus properly, massive migraines that shocked her and almost knocked her over, sometimes unable to even move, so overloaded was her mind. And York, Delta could not help but sympathize with York, her pain tormented him. Ergo, it reached Delta too. "She did not function very long," he says, nodding to Church and Caboose, "and not very well while she did." Though he does not mean for it to happen, he is ambushed with memories that are only half his own: staying up late with a cup of coffee, unable to sleep thinking she could hurt herself overtraining, watching her on the floor until the small hours of the morning; the way she began to rip her helmet off her head after training instead of the calm, graceful slip over her ponytail she used to have; the unfocused, sometimes wild look in her eyes when she turned to him (not him, York, not him) on the Mother of Invention, like she couldn't even see him; the sudden shifts in her tone as she attempted to speak over the voices in her head; the migraines, crippling, sending her to her knees and it would take everything York had not to run to her side every time. Delta does not take a moment to dwell on these memories. He does not need to, he has seen them many times over. He did not mean to access them, but he simply acknowledges them and refocuses on the conversation. "Having three minds at once proved far too..." He thinks of her screams, so many of them and so raw, fingers clawing at her temples as if she wanted to rip apart her own brain. He thinks of the crying he'd hear behind her door when York would go to bed after her, the sounds of her sorrow and her pain, moving about restlessly in her quarters, thrashing in her sleep. "...taxing."


End file.
